McQuaid's Justice Read online

  He remembered the first instant when he knew he would lose her if he once lied to her. He’d thought then that losing her only meant sacrificing her cooperation with the investigation, but even then he’d been kidding himself.

  “Are you asking, Amy?” He knew better than this, too. Like he knew the hills and creeks and valleys and draws on his land, he knew that even coming here he had violated half a dozen rules writ large in the book of ethical conduct about a witness in an open investigation. And that if he kept going, he’d violate half a dozen more. “Are you asking what I want?”

  Her eyes lingered on his hands after the necessity of that was past. If he thought speaking with his hands would alleviate the tension, he was wrong.

  “Yes.” Her pulse throbbed at her throat. She looked up, met his eyes. “I’m asking what you want.”

  He cleared away his bottle of beer, her wine, the bowl of egg salad, the baguette of bread, their plates. All the clutter that lay between them.

  She had plenty of time to retreat if retreat was what she wanted.

  He had the time as well but not the inclination to stop himself. He straightened and sat back on his heels, took her hand and pulled her between his splayed thighs. She came easily enough. Almost eagerly.

  Kneeling so close to his body, she was still as a church mouse. He was going to kiss her, maybe touch her. He thought she knew it. He didn’t think she could still be a virgin, not at twenty-nine, but he had the notion that she was not practiced, not an old hand at seductions, but at dodging them instead, only she wasn’t dodging him.

  Still he was leery. The physical attraction between them had already flared up more than once. He wasn’t convinced this time that it didn’t have as much to do with his willingness to try to understand her as it did with her wanting him.

  But then her eyes went to his lips and she touched her fingers to his whiskered jaw and his need of right reasons slipped away.

  “Amy.”

  Her fingers darted to his lower lip like a blind child exploring, or a deaf one learning the shape of spoken words. He spoke her name again, then again, because the sensation of her fingertips on his lips was as close a thing to heaven just then as he’d ever known.

  The heat of her body, the scent of her, cement dust and egg and chardonnay and some musky, deeply feminine scent all mixed together. Made his belly damn near cramp with wanting her. She leaned closer, drew her fingers lower to scrape her nails over the whiskers in the cleft of his chin. Her eyes followed the course of her fingers till they fell closed when he couldn’t stand it anymore and covered her parted lips with his own.

  Maybe it was the months, the years of abstinence forced on him by his injuries, but he lost himself so fast in Amy’s sweet silent lips, so hard deep inside himself, that he forgot what restraint was.

  What taking it slow meant or how scared he’d been that he’d never suffer such pleasure again.

  He pulled the long decorative pins from her hair, let them fall clattering to the floor, and thrust his hand in the spill of her hair, tangling his fingers, cradling her head.

  She was under his skin; he wanted to be under hers.

  Sunlight poured through the clerestory windows, warming Amy’s back, and shimmering above her shoulders. Cy’s hand held her head, pulled her hair, cradled her neck to deepen his kiss. The tenderness shook her more deeply than the touch of his lips or the heat and damp of his tongue, which—as it was—moved her to a place of sensations and heavy, indelible pleasure she didn’t remember ever feeling before.

  The pleasure had more to do with her heart and her mind, her soul, than even the sum of all that. McQuaid believed her, more than she believed in herself. Beneath her hands, splayed on his chest, she felt the pounding of his heart, the subtle tactile vibration of a groan, the beading of his nipples, the hardness of his pecs.

  The evidence of his desire for her laid waste all her jaded expectations and she wanted more than anything to feel her body tight up against his.

  She arched nearer. His arm closed around her waist, drawing her deeper into him, closer. He felt her heat now, more than smelled it.

  A small whimper of pleasure came from her then, the only sound he had heard her make, and he knew it was one that he would remember as long as he lived, for her small cry pulled him out of his trance and pointed out to him how weak and shallow he felt.

  What he craved was the sound of her voice, his name on her lips, and it loomed like some terrible fault in the landscape of his selfish and narrow little mind that he would never have it no matter what countless other ways she fit him.

  He had all the proof he needed that the icy sensation in his gut when she’d asked for his help was real. Amy was deaf, and he wasn’t man enough to cope with it.

  He tried to chalk the fault up to something more symbolic, less damning of his character, than that he would never hear her voice. Like a righteous, realistic, honest fear of never truly knowing her.

  It wasn’t that far-fetched.

  He’d thought he knew everything there was to know about Seth. What the kid needed, what he wanted, what he dreamed of what, what he was made of, even when Seth didn’t know himself. But he’d only been guessing, and his guessing was lousy. He knew if he hung around with Amy long enough to make what they had too important to back away from, sooner or later he’d start resorting to his faulty guessing again.

  And so would she. Start thinking she knew what was in his heart, filling in the blanks of their flawed and imperfect communication for herself, finally imagining the worst because she was only human and that’s what humans did best.

  He had only his experience with Seth being deaf to go on, but he also knew promises were hard enough between a man and a woman when they spoke the same language. When they didn’t, when one of them hobbled along and the other had to spell it out all the damned time, pretty soon the effort would begin to feel less like a payoff and more of a burden.

  Something always got lost in the translation.

  He knew what to do, how to kiss, where to put his hands, apply his lips, touch his tongue to hers. What he didn’t know was how to end it, not because he wanted to end the kiss or because it had run its course, but because it hadn’t.

  He pulled away, put his hand on her hips and gently pushed her down. Their foreheads came together. His heart clopped like a lame horse. His breathing felt as ragged as hers.

  Between them she signed with one hand. “That was lovely, McQuaid, but... surely it’s a little early for r-e-g-re-t.”

  He couldn’t misunderstand that. She must have tasted the emotion in him. He didn’t know how to answer. He let his ragged breathing excuse his silence. He stretched out his leg and sat and faced her, not knowing what would happen. Whether the hard and certain reality of falling head over heels in love with her would add up to anything lasting, even if he could get over her unending silence.

  He just couldn’t throw in the towel on himself—or her—yet. If nothing ever came of it, if whatever there was between them wasn’t meant to last, he wanted to know it wasn’t because he hadn’t given them an even chance. He wanted to show up, be man enough to love her if she wanted him, to be more than he thought he was right now—more than he’d been for a deaf kid.

  He wanted it more than he needed his honor. He chose his words carefully, leading her to believe it was the job, which while true, wasn’t the truth.

  “It shouldn’t have happened, Amy.”

  “Ever?”

  He looked at her, leading her further. “Ever is a long time.”

  She nodded, believing him, accepting at face value that he both wanted to kiss her and would again, eventually, maybe when his investigation was done.

  She got up and brought him another beer, poured herself another half-glass of wine, then looked steadily at him, measuring, he thought. Gauging anew whether he could be trusted or whether he would lie to her.

  He twisted off the cap and took a swig. His heart was still clopping stupidly along. H
e dragged his sleeve over his mouth. “Where were we?”

  She sipped at her wine, putting herself back to the point she’d intended to make before they kissed. “You were agreeing that I hadn’t imagined my uncle’s threats yesterday.”

  Cy nodded. “They were real enough, Amy, but I’m not convinced—”

  “Of what?” she demanded. “That he meant them? That he intended to scare me off? You’re not convinced of that? Because, Cy, if my uncle really has nothing to fear from me then what’s the point? If nothing I may have seen or heard that night matters, if there really is nothing more to my mother’s death than exactly what he told you, then why the intimidation tactics? He isn’t usually like that. He doesn’t bully people—”

  “He bullies you, Amy, and if what you’re telling me is accurate, he always has.”

  “But why? The only thing that makes any sense of his treating me that way is that I’m a threat to him. A threat he has to... somehow...contain.”

  Now was the time to edge her out, to do what he could to keep her safe from the fallout. “Amy, did you see your mother fall outside or not?”

  “No.”

  “Then whatever else you saw or heard or knew or even what your uncle suspects you knew is meaningless.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Nothing short of an eyewitness to your mother’s accident is going to be enough to prove or disprove the truth of half-assed allegations made against your father.”

  “That isn’t what you said yesterday,” she signed.

  “I know, but—”

  “Yesterday you said that what I knew was the only thing that was going to save my father’s nomination from the taint of the accusations.” Her eyes fixed on his. “Something has changed since then. What is it, Cy?”

  He drew a deep breath. He’d long since given up trying to distract Amy or dissuade her. He hoped she might still listen to reason, still take the way out he wanted her to take. He wasn’t optimistic, but he owed her the explanation of his own change of heart.

  “I’m convinced, Amy, that your uncle knew enough—before he ever turned over the extortion material to us—to discount any possibility that we would take it seriously.”

  “Please. Say that again,” she signed.

  He complied, nodding to indicate he understood her confusion, that he’d been confused himself. He went on to explain the discrepancies between the official autopsy and the letter recanting the ruling of an accidental death.

  “The ruling turns on whether the bruises indicate your mother was shoved, fell down and hit her head, or whether she was already dead when her head hit. Her tissues indicated a severe lack of oxygen.”

  “Which could be the real cause of her death?”

  “Yeah. One interpretation of that is that she had been smothered to death before her head ever hit the rock.”

  Distractedly, Amy covered the egg salad and got up to put the bowl in the cooler, then turned back to him and stood leaning against the built-in sideboard. “Isn’t there any way to tell?”

  He began to get up as well. “I’m only guessing, Amy. I haven’t seen—” The stiffness made his leg buckle and his knee cracked hard against the hardwood floor. Amy reached to steady him but he held up a hand to fend off her help. Grimacing, he stood up and leaned with her against the sideboard.

  “Cy, your face is white as a ghost!”

  “I’ll be all right.” He breathed deep a couple of times to disperse the pain, then went on, signing because he was gritting his teeth and she wouldn’t be able to read his lips very well. “I haven’t seen either document, but I’m assuming the amount of bleeding was the issue. If the heart isn’t pumping, then the amount of bleeding is minimal.”

  Her ill-concealed concern for him led her question. “What does that mean?”

  “All I know for sure, Amy, is that the cause of death isn’t clear, and it’s never going to be. What I’m getting at is that your uncle’s version of what went on in the minutes leading up to your mother’s death accounted for both the bruises and the indications of oxygen starvation.”

  “Case closed?” she signed.

  “More or less.”

  “Except that Perry let your investigation get under way before he bothered explaining what had happened.”

  “That’s my take on it.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “Why? If he knew what it would take to clear up whatever questions were being raised in the extortion attempt, then why wouldn’t he just do it?”

  “It’s possible that it took him a while to come up with his explanations for the hypoxia angle.”

  “It’s also possible he’s deliberately sabotaging my father’s shot at the Supreme Court, isn’t it?”

  “The thought occurred to me too,” Cy admitted. “Can you think of sweeter revenge, Amy, for all the indignities he suffered? He spent his whole life watching your father get what he believes he was entitled to himself—and now it’s in his power to take it all away.”

  She shook her head, wadding napkins and throwing them into the paper sack. “He can’t be that despicable.” She spelled the word for the sake of accuracy.

  “Can’t he?” Cy argued, knowing he was largely arguing her case against her uncle. “It won’t even reflect poorly on him. He may have allowed the investigation to get far enough that one way or the other, it costs your father what he’s worked a lifetime to achieve. But now, stepping in with the crucial information, Perry gets to be the hero of the story again. It’s his explanation of what went down that makes the autopsy results spin one way or the other. In effect, he’s the one standing between your father and a felony murder charge.”

  “It’s not that I would put it past Perry, Cy, but I don’t buy it. He’s too vain, too good to at what he does to let my father go down the tubes. To let anyone beat him. He intends to pull this off.”

  Cy straightened. “Pull what off?”

  She swallowed. “I think my mother was murdered. I think he knows she was because he’s the one who killed her.”

  Chapter Eight

  “I think he just decided my mother was too much of a liability to endure—”

  “Amy, slow down. Too much of a what? To do what?”

  “A liability,” she spelled.

  “So when the opportunity arose to dispense with her, he grabbed it?”

  She nodded, convinced of it, still slowing herself. “Don’t you see? It really doesn’t matter whether she was dead before her head hit that rock or not. One way or the other, he got to her. All he had to do was make it look like an accident—for my father’s benefit if nothing else. And now he’s playing us all for fools. There’s nothing more he has to do now to get away with it.”

  Cy swore under his breath. The logic of the scenario Amy drew with her hands stunned him. “It plays, Amy.” Not least because it also explained why Perry Reeves would risk letting the investigation get under way. “Once he accounted for the discrepancies that made the coroner change his mind, the case file on your mother’s death would be closed forever. After an official FBI inquiry, the likelihood is zip of anyone raising the possibility of foul play in your mother’s death again.”

  “And all the while,” Amy signed, “the possibility of his guilt never even comes up.” She stopped. Her hands fell to her sides. Her fingers gripped the top of the sideboard behind her for the few moments before she resumed signing. “Will he get away with it, Cy?”

  He wanted to give her his macho cowboy lawman assurances, to promise her that if Cyrus V. McQuaid had anything to do with it, the murder of her mother would not go unavenged or unpunished. His record spoke for itself, and for him. He intended to dog the hell out of the case while he could. But he wouldn’t lie to her.

  Her scenario was too compelling by half to discount. And if it was true, then Cy would bet the farm her uncle had been right there, taking charge, doing for Judge Reeves what he did best. In that case, Perry Reeves had served his own interests as well, making damned sure
Julia Reeves’s final resting place would be some fancy urn for her ashes, so there would be no body to exhume and later make a liar of him.

  “Based on what we know right now, Amy, assuming he did the deed, he’s already gotten away with it. And all this is just another opportunity for your uncle to pull your father’s fat out of the fire.”

  “And thumb his nose at you.”

  His jaw tightened. She’d managed to reduce to a single visceral image exactly what he’d been thinking. He didn’t know if by “you” she had meant him or the whole system of justice Perry Reeves’s brother was destined to preside over, but Cy was taking it personally.

  “What will you do?” she asked, her hands hovering in the air, posing the question.

  “I don’t know, Amy. Anything I do now to keep the investigation open is likely to compromise your father’s nomination process. Especially if the press gets wind of it.” He turned his head toward the front of the house. “Someone’s knocking at the door. Do you want to get it?”

  “It’s probably Paulo. I forgot all about him.” She went to let the boy in, and gestured for him toward the piles of brick that needed to be removed. The boy grinned, ran out to fetch a wheelbarrow and began loading up the rubble.

  Cy began picking up after their meal, polishing off the remainder of his sandwich. Amy knelt to take up the cloth she’d spread out on the floor, then sank down on her heels. “Your time is very short, isn’t it?”

  “To make the case against your uncle?” he asked to clarify. When she nodded, he answered, “I’m not sure the window of opportunity hasn’t already slammed shut, Amy.”

  “Then I’ll have to do it. I want to go to Steamboat to see my brother first, but it’s now or never, Cy. Perry will keep stonewalling until it all goes away,” she signed, holding up one hand like a cop stopping traffic, the other slithering off. “That’s the only thing he has to do now. If he has a problem, I’m it. I’m the wild card he can’t control. You know that.”